Nice analogy, Ozzie.
Response from Caught Cheater - Worth Reading
Sort:
Yea I thought about that. 
This kind of thing has happened before though and Erik took care of it right away. He knows the importance of having an open forum (with limits of course).
Anyway back on topic... great post Ozzie.
I think there should be some way to identify which comments are deleted by staff so we know , at the very least. Is there ?
Aug 11, 2009
0
#165
At the moment, there is nothing that shows which posts were removed by members themselves and which were removed by staff.
kohai wrote:
At the moment, there is nothing that shows which posts were removed by members themselves and which were removed by staff.
I'm pretty sure we can assume that outside of chess_kebab's joke, 90%+ of the instances where [COMMENT DELETED] was posted in place of a comment, it was done by a moderator. It seems very improbable that this specific method, with all capital letters.. block parenthesis... etc. - would cooincidentally be used by various different members. Just saying...
Dexter_Morgan wrote:
kohai wrote:
At the moment, there is nothing that shows which posts were removed by members themselves and which were removed by staff.
I'm pretty sure we can assume that outside of chess_kebab's joke, 90%+ of the instances where [COMMENT DELETED] was posted in place of a comment, it was done by a moderator. It seems very improbable that this specific method, with all capital letters.. block parenthesis... etc. - would cooincidentally be used by various different members. Just saying...
No, that's what comes up automatically after every comment that gets deleted.
Darn really? Thanks for the info u2, this'll be tougher than I thought then.
Dexter_Morgan wrote:
Yea I thought about that. This kind of thing has happened before though and Erik took care of it right away. He knows the importance of having an open forum (with limits of course).
Anyway back on topic... great post Ozzie.
It's been happening for a long time that posts have been seemingly randomly deleted. Could it just be a bug or something?
atomichicken wrote:
Dexter_Morgan wrote:
Yea I thought about that. This kind of thing has happened before though and Erik took care of it right away. He knows the importance of having an open forum (with limits of course).
Anyway back on topic... great post Ozzie.
It's been happening for a long time that posts have been seemingly randomly deleted. Could it just be a bug or something?
Well I mentioned it to Erik, he said he'll look into it. The fact that the well-respected NM Reb got his post deleted without his knowledge is helping our cause. If it was just me, I doubt he'd care as much. He's probably familiar with the usual lowbrow stuff I normally post. 
LinwoodMike wrote:
sorry for posting again but i'm just wondering is talking about cheating on this forum aganist the rules because when i looked at the fourm a couple of minutes ago i was thinking oh man it might be a bad idea to talk about cheating too much
Technically it is against the rules, but if the staff are still serious about that rule then they aren't leading by example very well!
chess_kebabs wrote:
I know why NM Reb got his post deleted.... he messaged it to me..... I told him because this is a PUBLIC FORUM he can't say stuff like that here, as minors have access to these forums... whereas in private groups you can get away with it as they are, I believe, unmoderated and supposed to be private... I deliberately gave my group, Chess Nuts!, an age retriction of 16 and over to join... We have a jokes thread happening there right now as we speak that is suitable only for ears of 16 and over....
Thanks for the info. I honestly don't remember what I posted so I couldn't tell you whether it was out of bounds or not. A brief notification by the mod would have been nice though.
chess_kebabs wrote:
AND what Erik I am sure means about not discussing cheating Mike, is obviously not to publicly accuse anyone of cheating... as it is slander against someone's name without any evidence... The correct action to take if you suspect someone of cheating, is to report it to staff through the REPORT ABUSE link at the bottom of each online page. You can discuss cheating in general, like we are doing here, but not accuse someone publicly.
No, the staff definately have a policy of no cheating discussion of any kind. This is the reason they always give when they lock a forum due to cheating discussion:
"Cheating in chess is an issue that Chess.com takes seriously. That said, it has minimal impact on the site and shouldn't be a concern for 99.9% of players. Unfortunately, there is much more paranoia about the topic than it actually deserves."
It is officially their policy not to allow cheating discussion but one they are obviously not anymore taking seriously.
Mike, kebabs is wrong about this one, note atomic's post above.
The rationale for that policy is that most often the cheating discussion threads add to the overall paranoia and what not.
I'm sure in this instance, Erik's intent was that this would serve as more of a cheating deterrant than anything else, which is why he decided to raise the issue.
It's not at all chess.com recanting their earlier position on cheating discussions, and really - it's NOT to discuss cheating. It's a momentary, staff incited warning sign along the way, saying: Look, we even ban moderators, paying members, etc.
That is all, and there isn't any need to drag it out either.
rookandladder wrote:
RedSoxpawn wrote:
That is a level of maturity I would love to reach in life
No, maturity would be to never cheat in the first place.
But I wouldn't expect a Red Sox (and probably a Patriots) fan to understand that.
Ah i see that you dont get it. Maturity here means to acknowledge your own mistake instead of denying it and taking responsible for it. Yup he must have cheated a LOT of people but now he has realised it was wrong. That matters. To those who think that this should not be made public, think again. This a lesson to all. If anybody is cheating, take note & repent as it will do you no good!!! BTW we learn our lessons through our or others mistake. Thats why this column get 5 star from me
chess_kebabs wrote:
atomichicken wrote:
chess_kebabs wrote:
AND what Erik I am sure means about not discussing cheating Mike, is obviously not to publicly accuse anyone of cheating... as it is slander against someone's name without any evidence... The correct action to take if you suspect someone of cheating, is to report it to staff through the REPORT ABUSE link at the bottom of each online page. You can discuss cheating in general, like we are doing here, but not accuse someone publicly.
No, the staff definately have a policy of no cheating discussion of any kind. This is the reason they always give when they lock a forum due to cheating discussion:
"Cheating in chess is an issue that Chess.com takes seriously. That said, it has minimal impact on the site and shouldn't be a concern for 99.9% of players. Unfortunately, there is much more paranoia about the topic than it actually deserves."
It is officially their policy not to allow cheating discussion but one they are obviously not anymore taking seriously.
That makes no sense to me... why wouldn't one be allowed to discuss cheating? I see it discussed all the time in Live chess... people saying why would one want to cheat, no one steps in and says drop the subject.. they do step in when names are being hurled around... and rightly so.
If it was against policy to officially talk about the subject then why was this forum created, and by none other than the site director himself, Erik? TO DISCUSS CHEATING...
In addition to what Rael said, just about every other forum topic was about cheating before the new "cheat posting" rules were established.
As far as Erik starting a topic about cheating: he is the boss and can do what he pleases.
Dexter_Morgan wrote:
CPawn wrote:
Dexter_Morgan wrote:
CPawn wrote:
Very mature, and it also shows what it takes to be a real man. God Bless whoever that is, and i wish them the best.
Sorry I wouldn't use the words "mature" and a "real man" to describe a lowlife who takes it upon himself to cheat on an internet chess site.
You are correct. But i posted that he was mature, and a real man for aologizing.
I respect your opinion. And chess_kebab's too. I just have a huge distaste for chess cheaters, and seemingly nothing they can do from that point onward can change my opinion of them.
I understand, and can certainly respect your opinion Dexter. And if im taking this to an extreme then my apologies, but life to to short to hold a grudge. And im big on forgiveness.
chess_kebabs wrote:
I personally don't understand why anyone wants to cheat. Well I understand why they want to, because to boost their ratings... but I don't understand why they don't want to do it the honest way... why the points matter that much to them... I guess for glory and to boost their egos. But I wouldn't detest anyone for it... it's not like they murdered anyone. Having said that, I fully support Erik's hard-core crack-down approach to stamping out cheating as long as no innocents are chucked out in the process... I am trusting there isn't?
Cheating at anything is mainly done to try and satisfy self esteem issues, which obviously it doesnt do.
Rael wrote:
The rationale for that policy is that most often the cheating discussion threads add to the overall paranoia and what not.
I'm sure in this instance, Erik's intent was that this would serve as more of a cheating deterrant than anything else, which is why he decided to raise the issue.
It's not at all chess.com recanting their earlier position on cheating discussions, and really - it's NOT to discuss cheating. It's a momentary, staff incited warning sign along the way, saying: Look, we even ban moderators, paying members, etc.
That is all, and there isn't any need to drag it out either.
And yet, the staff don't bother to lock this thread and are even joining in with the discussion themselves.
Following how one gets from non-cheater to regular cheater, I think it goes through many steps. Borrowing a bit from some comments in the Cheating Forum, along with some expert analysis on how Madoff's Ponzi scheme developed, it seems that the initial crossing the line is much different from the subsequent events.
Initial crossing the line
One theory is that Madoff's scheme started off as a single trade in a single account gone bad. He then borrowed some money from another account to pay the first account, to smooth over or eliminate the bad trade. (The initial intention was undoubtedly to make up the lost ground, then to repay the account that had been borrowed from. It's even possible that this happened several times successfully before finally spiraling out of control.)
For computer cheating, the initial crossing of the line can be something as simple as coming home completely drunk, with a pretty low vacation balance, and a bunch of games coming up in the queue. So you can fire up the Fritz and plug in a couple of the games that are pretty equal - because even if you're plastered you can still win an endgame up a rook. The initial intention was undoubtedly to do it just once.
Subsequent infractions
It's easy to see how Madoff's actions can spiral out of control. You make a bad trade, borrow from one account to pay another, double down your bets to make it up, and that trade goes south too. All of a sudden you've got a really big problem on your hands. And you've still got all these parties and social occasions to attend, and you cannot just admit what you did - it's much easier to just live the lie.
In the case of a (c)heater, what starts as using Fritz to help avoid vacation time after the bar can continue into "blunder checking" for complicated middlegames or endgames (where you do full analysis and then run Fritz to check your analysis), and then it can continue into "well I don't have time to analyze this game right now I'll let Fritz do it". It's clearly a slippery slope.